


Force Majeure

by avocadomoon



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, literature porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avocadomoon/pseuds/avocadomoon
Summary: Cancer had taken Harlan's wife and his son, and money had taken the rest of them - that's how he used to put it. "Moneyiscancer," he'd finally landed upon, on one gloomy night up in the attic. "It's freedom in a cage, Marta. Practically speaking, it's power and it's influence - but if you're not careful, it'll get in your lungs and shrivel up your organs." He'd shuddered dramatically. "Disgusting stuff. I should give it all to UNESCO and move to a home."
Relationships: Benoit Blanc & Marta Cabrera, Harlan Thrombey & Marta Cabrera, Marta Cabrera & Alicia Cabrera, Marta Cabrera & Meg Thrombey
Comments: 43
Kudos: 320





	Force Majeure

_"The North is my home," said the old lady, "and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz. I'm afraid, my dear, you will have to live with us."_

**The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum**

Marta likes to read; this was one of the first things that she and Harlan discovered that they had in common. Harlan had nothing but time on his hands, after all, at the point in his life that Marta had entered it: he was still writing, but that was an afterthought, really, an artistic endeavor for his own entertainment rather than the source of his income, which at that point really needed very little attention. This is something about money that Marta did not understand, before she met the Thrombeys: once you accumulate a certain amount of it, it starts self-replicating. Like an alien, or a virus. 

She had not read Harlan's books before they hired her; this was one of the reasons that her interview went well. Harlan was delighted to discover someone who hadn't a single clue who he was, and actually forbade her from reading his novels for the first year or so of their acquaintance. "They're shit, anyway. Complete schlock. Read this instead," he'd say, and hand her something by Raymond Carver, or Carson McCullers, or Truman Capote. He was fond of mystery writers himself, for obvious reasons, but the books he gave Marta were curated specifically to help her discover _her_ tastes: Richard Wright was a win, and so was Julia Alvarez. She couldn't get through the first few chapters of David Foster Wallace. There was a first edition of Willa Cather, and a thick, leatherbound copy of Edgar Allen Poe stories. Ruth Ozeki, Donna Tartt, Arthur Miller, Octavia Butler. Marta was the one to introduce Harlan to Zadie Smith, and from there they read Salman Rushdie and Helen Oyeyemi concurrently, which was quite the experience, to say the least. Marta gave him a few of her aunt's pulpy romance novels for Christmas one year (he had a highbrow attitude about literature like any serious writer, but deep down he loved the trashy stuff the best) and in return he insisted she keep his illustrated copy of _The Wizard of Oz_ , which was her favorite in his library. 

She'd brought it back to the house a few months before, after their apartment had been broken into, for safekeeping. Harlan had argued with her for weeks about it, but Marta was too nervous to keep it at home - it was such a beautiful book, big and leatherbound with the first four novels in it, and the pictures were hand drawn by a children's illustrator that Harlan had been madly in love with for a time in the early eighties. Grace was her name, and the back cover contained a mysterious love note that charmed Marta to pieces, the first time she'd read it: _To my gruesome friend on his most terrible birthday, let's never speak of this again! Love forever, G.G._

"Beautiful," Harlan had told her, "so charming, very smart. Smarter than me. Married a banker. Pah!" He patted Marta's hand. "Always made the kids uncomfortable that I kept it, especially after their mother died. Here - we'll hide it in the hidden compartment in the office bookshelf - no safer place. But it's _yours now,_ don't forget."

Marta thinks of this one night, alone in the house, padding through the eerie, silent hallways in her bunny slippers and crying softly to herself, melancholy and regretful. She takes all the books off the bottom shelf and wipes the dust clean with a paper towel, and reaches into the corner to depress the hidden latch. The panel slides open, and there it is: wrapped in a dish towel - Harlan had done that - still as lovely as it was the first day she picked it up. Marta curls up in Harlan's chair and reads the first few chapters out loud to herself, like she used to do when she was a little girl learning how to speak English, and falls asleep right there, her head on the desk next to the leatherbound cover. 

"Oh, Marta," Meg says, the next morning when she arrives for their coffee date. One look, and Meg can see the whole night, written all over the creases on her face - she drops her bookbag on the floor and wraps her arms around Marta's shoulders, pressing her cheek fiercely against Marta's arm. "I miss him too."

Marta hugs her back, because she believes her, to a certain extent. "Bad night," she mumbles.

"Did you sleep here, at the desk?" Meg pulls back and brushes Marta's hair away from her cheeks, like a mother would. She frowns sadly, like Marta's disappointed her. "Come on. Let's make some coffee."

There's a tense hesitance in the way that Meg navigates the house now, still with a proprietary air, since it used to be hers, but with an awkward sort of awareness that it belongs to Marta, now. Still, this is better than Joni's condescending "advice," and Walt's cold silence. Not to mention the threatening letters from Linda's lawyers, which are loud enough on their own without the presence of the woman herself. 

"When does your sister get back from Florida?" Meg asks, joining her at the breakfast table. "This place is creepy when it's empty. I don't blame you for not being able to sleep."

"Three days," Marta says. "If her flights all go smoothly, that is. There's supposed to be weather - a hurricane, maybe, I heard on the news."

Meg nods. "Remember when Mom and I got stuck in Heathrow? When we were coming back from Greece. It was terrible." She laughs. "We slept on these little couches in one of the Delta lounges. Mom was so cranky they wouldn't pay for a hotel."

Marta presses her lips together and hums. Two years ago; a birthday trip. Harlan had told her afterwards that Joni had called from London to ask for money for a return flight; theirs was cancelled, and the airline had insisted on rebooking them on a flight several days later, she'd said. Harlan refused, on the grounds that Meg had always wanted to visit London, and they found out later that they'd actually missed their connection - it hadn't been cancelled at all - and Joni had already spent all of her allowance for the month, so she couldn't even afford a hotel. They'd spent almost four days in the airport, at the bottom of a very long, holiday weekend standby list. 

But that hadn't been Meg's fault. "We'll hope for clear skies," Marta says, and smiles at Meg, who is fussing with her new lip piercing - swollen and a bit ugly. Not that Marta would tell her so. "Tell me about school. Is that philosophy class you told me about any good?"

"Yes, oh my God, it's amazing," Meg says, flushing a little with excitement. Marta loves Meg dearly for how much she loves school. It's so calming to hear her talk about it - and one of the rare times that she reminds Marta of Harlan. 

It is, actually, just what Marta needs right now. She sips her coffee - too strong, like Meg always makes it - and thinks about the cyclone that carries Dorothy away to Oz. A symbol, Harlan had said. He'd thought it represented _deus ex machina,_ an act of God. The literal hand of the author, picking Dorothy up out of her field and dropping her into the middle of an adventure. 

"Or," Marta had argued, "it is simply chaos. A random act of nature. The story starts in disarray - through an accident. It's an allegory for the mayhem of life."

"Marta," Harlan had said, laughing, for they laughed a lot, when they were together, "is that not the same thing?"

"Dear Marta," Blanc says, which is how he always begins phone conversations - as if he is writing her a letter out loud, "could you humor me for a second or two? I have a puzzle."

"I like puzzles," Marta says, switching her phone to her other ear so she can stir the pasta more easily. Just spaghetti tonight - when Alicia gets home, she'll cook a feast. She's planning _menus_. "Hit me."

"Is Timothy Vincente telling the truth when he claims he is being blackmailed by his ex-wife's former mistress? She's a tennis instructor, I believe," Blanc says thoughtfully, as if this last piece of information is vital to Marta's understanding of the question. 

"Mr. Blanc, I told you, it doesn't work like that," Marta says, smiling into the steam, "I'm not a divining rod. I have to know what the truth _is,_ in order to be repulsed by the lie."

"Now, now, you didn't let me finish," Blanc scolds. "Mr. Vincente most certainly killed his brother, I know that much. But my concern here is of motive - I would simply like to hear your opinion, if you'd be so kind. You have been following my recent case, haven't you?"

"Yes," Marta says, turning off the heat. Reaching down into the water with her fork, she carefully lifts a single piece of spaghetti out of the broth, holding it aloft in the air for a few seconds to cool. Then she tosses it at the wall, grinning in triumph when it splatters against the tile, and sticks. "I still can't be your crystal ball, though."

"While I agree that you have a firm grasp on reality, dear Marta, I think you do underestimate yourself," Blanc says. "I have never had a better good luck charm than you."

"A good luck charm is a very different thing than a lie detector," Marta counters. 

"Not really, in terms of superstition," Blanc replies. "Perhaps a kind ear, then?"

"That, I can do," Marta says. She leans against the counter, leaving the pasta alone for the moment. "What is your gut telling you?"

"That he's telling the truth," Blanc says. "However, as an investigator I strive for objectivity above all else, fact-based reasoning _guided_ by instinct, not shaped by it. And thus I find myself puzzled, for his ex-wife has no reason to lie that I can discern. Additionally, her mistress - the tennis instructor - is now happily married, to a nice young woman from Canada. What reason would she have to blackmail Mr. Vincente _now,_ five years after her association with Mrs. Vincente ended?"

"Perhaps she is still in love with her?" Marta asks. "Did you look at her hands? The hands always give it away."

"I did," Blanc allows, "they were very still, at her sides. No longing twitches or angry fists."

"Hm," Marta says, tapping her bottom lip. "And Mrs. Vincente?"

"Quite bitter, in regards to her ex-husband, but otherwise seems utterly bored with this whole affair."

"Then what would Timothy Vincente stand to gain by lying? Can he hope to implicate the mistress in the murder instead?"

"No!" Blanc sounds frustrated, almost flustered, like he does when he hits a brick wall with something. Of course, in his state of semi-retirement, most of the brick walls he hits are related to the New York Times daily crossword, which Marta also enjoys helping him with. "It's quite open and shut. We have security footage of his car at the scene of the crime, a ridiculous amount of forensic evidence, and an off-the-record confession - fairly vague, won't stand up in court of course, but he as much confirmed it himself. No, he definitely killed his brother, and he definitely did it for the insurance money. But he claims that he was driven to this desperate measure by Ms. Jorgensen's demands. Which _may_ hold some weight in court as a defense, if he can prove it."

"Does he have proof?" Marta asks curiously. 

"Encrypted emails," Blanc says. "Untraceable. He was certainly being blackmailed by someone. But as to who - why, he could've been sending them to himself."

"Very Machiavellian," Marta says, turning back to her pasta water. "Is he the type?"

"No," Blanc says, still sounding flustered. "He's actually rather dim. Which is why I'm inclined to believe him. Stupid people are quite trustworthy, in my experience."

Marta laughs. "You're very cynical sometimes, Mr. Blanc. I think I find it charming."

"Why, thank you. Marta, what _are_ you doing? Did you answer my call from a treadmill?"

"I'm cooking," Marta says with a grunt, struggling with the large pot. She hates this part - dumping it into colander - but refuses to put the phone down. "Spaghetti and meatballs. I'm using the recipe from the inside of the tomato can, like you told me."

"Ah, but you need fresh basil," Blanc says. "You may call me back at a later time, if you're busy, my dear."

"I'm not busy, I'm cooking," Marta says again, grunting a little as she tips the pot over into the sink, a rush of steam flooding up towards her face to flush her skin. The phone goes a little slippery against her cheek, and she blinks, angling her face back away from the heat. "I have basil from the garden. Would you believe that's the only plant I haven't managed to kill?"

"Yes I would. Basil is very hearty," Blanc says. "You must add fresh cheese, too. Have you ever had pecorino pepato?"

"No."

"Peppered romano cheese," Blanc continues, "simply heavenly with pasta."

"Maybe I can find some at the farmer's market. Oh, I tried some with walnuts in it last week - I think it was cheddar. Some kind of yellow cheese. It was wonderful with honey."

"Do you like truffles?" Blanc asks abruptly. 

"I've never tried them."

"We'll have to remedy that," Blanc says. "Truffle oil is very good on pasta too. But if you have meatballs and tomato sauce, then best stick with basil and mozzarella. If you add a tiny bit of chicken broth to the sauce, it will really bring it together. And breadcrumbs for the meatballs."

"So...not the recipe from the can at all, then," Marta says, amused. 

"Marta, the recipe is simply a starting point! A template for your creativity," Blanc says. "Oh dear, I'm rather hungry. I just realized."

Marta laughs out loud, surprising herself with the volume. She has to grip the phone with her hand, again, to keep it from slipping right into the colander of pasta.

"You should have some pecorino pepato for dinner, Mr. Blanc," she says. "And if you think Mr. Vincente is too stupid for premeditated murder, perhaps look for someone smart enough to manipulate him into one of passion?"

"Hm," Blanc says, a warm silence hovering on the line between them for a moment. "Now that there is a thought." 

"I do have some, from time to time."

"All good ones, I'm sure," Blanc says. "Tell me a few now, while I have you on the line. How did your sister take to Orlando? Badly, I hope. It's a wretched place."

"And so far away," Marta says with a sigh. "I don't know yet. I'm picking her up at the airport tomorrow. She's so bad at texting - she hasn't told me anything. And I didn't want to push."

"I remember when my own brother was that age," Blanc says. "Nineteen-year-olds are old enough to know they don't know anything, but young enough still to think they'll be able to figure it out. A deadly combination."

Marta thinks of Meg, and laughs again. "Yes, exactly."

"But if you tell them what to do," Blanc cautions, "you'll inspire them to do the opposite. Reverse psychology doesn't work either; once they hit eighteen they're too smart to be fooled."

"Alicia has never been fooled by that," Marta says. She smiles to herself, charmed by the moment, and grabs a bottle of olive oil for the pasta. "It was good to hear from you, Benoit."

"And it was lovely as always to hear your voice, Miss Cabrera," he responds. "Divining rod or no."

Marta scatters the oil across the noodles haphazardly, wrapped in the warmth of the kitchen and of course, his accent, which always puts her in the mood for a glass of brandy, or a Motown record turned all the way up on the stereo. "Will you call me later this week? I would like to hear how it goes."

"Of course. And perhaps I will send you some cheese."

Marta is charmed by that too, the image of a package of romano cheese arriving in the mail, overnighted from Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan, which is where he is currently sleuthing. A lakeside town full of money and suspicious people, and apparently quite a few parasailing enthusiasts, too. Or so he's told her. "If you wish. I could send you something in exchange. I'm making cookies in the morning."

"Oh, I couldn't," he says, in the tone of voice that means he really could, and could she please mail it express if she'd be so kind, because he's rather impatient. "You do have a kind heart, my dear. I wouldn't want to take advantage."

Marta laughs again, which is a nice feeling that he gives her, that she appreciates very much. Laughing for the hell of it, at things that aren't even funny - she'd forgotten what that was like, for awhile. "You're a gentleman, Mr. Blanc. I'm sure you'll stop yourself before you go too far."

"Well, I'd like to think so," he says. 

Alan Stevens, Esq., typically deals in family law, but offered his services to her pro bono after the trial, which was very nice of him, Marta thought. She pays him anyway. 

"Ridiculous," he mutters, peering over his glasses at the latest certified letter from Linda Thrombey's lawyer. "I'm sure they're just trying to bully you into giving them some money, now. None of the last few lawsuits have had any real legal standing."

"Maybe I should just give her some, then," Marta says, gazing down at her fingernails. She thinks of the last time she'd seen Linda, which of course had been in court. Thin, angry, divorced, and sharpened to a razor point. She'd loved her father, Marta knew. Sometimes she remembers the desperate way Linda had sometimes talked to Harlan when she'd had a few drinks - prolonging the conversation way past its natural end point, like a little girl who didn't want to go to bed. "Would it be the kind thing to do?"

"I'm a lawyer, Marta," Alan says with a smile, "what do I know about being kind?"

She tips her teacup at him, grinning. 

"You can do whatever you see fit," Alan continues. "If you wish to give her money, however, I would recommend a trust, with strict stipulations."

Of all the Thrombeys, Marta sometimes thinks that Linda was perhaps the saddest. Her entire life blown apart - all her pride and bravery skewered by a man she'd always tried so hard to impress. That was the saddest part, perhaps - because Marta knew that it was in Linda's power to impress Harlan all along. All he'd wanted, really, was the honest love of his children. But that was something none of them were capable of giving him. 

"No money to Morris, or to Ransom's appeal case?" Marta asks.

"Exactly. Something similar to what you've set up for Joni." Alan's voice dries on her name; he's still rather put out with Joni about their last encounter with her, when she'd called Marta a "selfish bitch" for refusing to invest in a yoga studio she wanted to buy. Marta's been ignoring her emails ever since. "It might also encourage her, though. If she thinks her tactics succeeded."

"I'll have to think about it."

"Yes, take a few days at least," Alan encourages. "Spend some time with your sister and relax for awhile. I know it's been difficult for you, now that your mother's in San Antonio."

"It's better for her health," Marta says. The winters had always been hard on her. "Plus, we have family there. It's been years since she's spent any real time with them, really."

"I like Texas," Alan muses. "Spent some time in Houston when I was a young man. You know, a few hundred years ago." He cracks a friendly grin, and reaches out to pat Marta's hand. "Don't worry too much about Linda. Her bark is worse than her bite - trust me."

Marta tapped her fingernails against the study desk, restless for some reason. "Do you read, Mr. Stevens? Fiction, I mean."

"Oh, occasionally," Alan says. "Harlan gave books as gifts all the time. He once gave me a copy of my wife's graduate thesis for Christmas - could've knocked me over with a feather. I still have no idea how he found it - they must've only printed a dozen copies or so." He shakes his head in remembered amazement. "Wasn't too long after she passed. It was the most thoughtful gift, really. It surprised me, since I didn't think he even liked me, up to that point."

"He could be very gruff. But it was only out of self-defense," Marta says. 

"Yes, yes. That's a good way of putting it." Alan smiles at her, the sun glinting gently off his spectacles. "Have you been doing a lot of reading, Marta?"

"Yes." She takes a breath. "And...writing. Actually."

"Oh! That's wonderful."

It's the first time she's said it out loud. She looks away, out the window, trying to swallow back the embarrassment. "It's just - messing around, really. I don't think I'm very good at it - certainly not as good as Harlan was."

"Well, he always said it was a skill, not a God-given gift. Something to practice and develop, like a muscle," Alan says. "Have you thought about publishing anything?"

A complicated question. The publishing company remains in Walt's hands, but the rights still belong to Marta, so in effect Walt doesn't really do anything differently from what he did when Harlan was alive, which consisted of showing up to the office every day and signing everyone's paychecks. Marta feels sympathy for him. Sometimes. "Maybe. Maybe someday."

"You should try. A pen name, perhaps, would shield you from those internet people," Alan advises. "I imagine Harlan would approve. He was always willing to reply to letters from writing students - and there was that MFA program he endowed - he always had me pass those matters onto him first."

Marta smiles faintly. "Yes, I remember."

"I think, if you don't mind me saying," Alan continues kindly, "that it would do you some good, Marta, to find something creative to invest yourself in. It's easy to let the drudgeries of life pull you into a kind of stupor. Music, art, literature, dance - those are the things that remind you what life is lived _for._ It's important to nurture them in yourself, as well as in the world around you."

"That's a beautiful thought, Mr. Stevens," Marta says softly, touched by his casual passion. "Thank you."

"Well, of course," Alan says. "Just an old, comfortable man's view of things. I'm sure you've had enough of that by now."

Marta shrugs. "I think I'm used to it," she says. 

Alicia's had a terrible time in Orlando, Marta comes to find. She's practically in tears when Marta finds her amongst the crowd at the gate, and it takes the long drive back to the house, and a quick stop for coffee, to pry the story out of her. 

"What's wrong with me, I was only gone for like, a week," Alicia says, trying to wipe her tears away without smearing her eyeliner, which is proving to be impossible. "I just missed you, and Mom, and the creepy house, and the weather, and Orlando is so _gross,_ Marta. It's _so_ gross."

Marta laughs, offering her a clean napkin. Alicia takes it with another sniffle. "So go to college somewhere else. Your grades are good enough, you could get in anywhere."

"I just feel so stupid. Like a little kid, you know? Couldn't even hack it for a week."

"You're not stupid," Marta scolds her. "Don't say that about yourself. If it wasn't the right place for you, then it wasn't the right place - simple as that. That's what these immersion trips are for, isn't it? To help you figure out whether you like the school or not?"

"I guess." Alicia fiddles with her straw, still looking far too downtrodden for Marta's comfort. "I don't think I wanna talk about it anymore. If we're gonna call Mom later, I don't want her to know I've been crying - she'll just worry."

"She'll worry anyway," Marta says. 

"I mean, yeah, but I don't have to make it _worse,_ " Alicia says, shaking her head definitively, as if trying to shake off her mood. "I read the thing you sent me."

"Mhm?"

"Is it based on one of your detective's cases?"

"He's not _my_ detective," Marta says, blushing a little, "but yes. He gave me permission."

"Senorita Watson," Alicia teases. "It suits you. No, hey, I liked it!" Alicia laughs, dodging Marta's under-the-table kick. "I did, honest. You're so good, Marta. You make it seem real, like the little details you put into everything, and the jokes and all that. I really do think it's great."

"I don't know what to do with it. Mr. Stevens suggested a pen name, but it wouldn't be hard for them to dig up that it's me, would it? I mean, they found out where we lived."

"But they haven't found Aunt Maria's place in San Antonio, and the Terrible Thrombeys know you'll sue the shit out of them if they doxx the mansion."

"They're just stories," Marta dismisses. "Just messing around. Nobody would want to publish them anyway."

"You never know," Alicia says, nudging her with her knee. "You could publish them yourself. Make Walt do it."

Something inside of her cringes at the very thought. Giving him any sense of satisfaction, any impression that she's less than confident, would be unbearable. Not to mention the spike of anxiety she feels at the thought of Walt and Donna reading her writing, making fun of it at the dinner table - and dear God, if _Jacob_ ever found it - 

She shudders. "Maybe someday."

"Marta," Alicia says, leaning forward on her elbow. "That's what we used to say when we were little. Do you remember? 'Maybe someday, when Mom gets her green card. Maybe someday, when Dad comes back.'"

"I remember," Marta says softly. 

"So, someday is _now,_ " Alicia says. "I mean - not about Dad. But everything else." She shakes her hair out of her face, her chin stuck out stubbornly. "You have everything you need to make your life into whatever you want it to be. Maybe you can't be a nurse anymore, maybe you've got all these weird problems now that normal people don't have, but Marta - " Alicia kicks her again. "You have to work at being happy. It's something you make for yourself, not something that just falls in your lap."

Marta looks down at her latte and considers this, for a long second. "Why do you think that is, Alicia? I mean, it seems kind of stupid, right? Shouldn't we be able to be content with the world around us? Why is happiness something you have to go out and _find?_ "

Alicia shrugs. "So we're not bored? Fuck if I know." She slurps up the last of her frappuccino. "It means more if you gotta work for it. That's what Mom always says."

Marta's not sure that makes sense. Cosmically speaking, anyway. Sometimes she wonders if Harlan didn't have it right after all, with his gleeful, childlike cynicism. Sometimes. 

"Thanks for the coffee," Alicia says. She grins with all her teeth. "Will you put me in one of your stories? I wanna be like, a badass lady detective. Or maybe a suspect. Femme fatale - yeah, that's my shit."

"I'll think about it," Marta teases. 

Neil Thrombey, Joni's husband, is buried a few feet away from Harlan, in a well-tended to grave beneath a oval-shaped headstone. Marta leaves flowers for him whenever she brings whiskey for Harlan's, which in the past year has thinned to every few months or so. Harlan's mother, Wanetta, was interned here as well, which Marta arranged when she passed last spring. Marta brings her chocolates.

Fran is buried closer to her family upstate, and Marta's only been once. It was probably the most terrible feeling in the world, meeting Fran's mother at the courthouse, on the day of Ransom's trial. Marta had answered all her questions, and all of them had been very kind, but Marta still wakes up in a cold sweat sometimes, thinking about those last few words of Fran's. The last, angry sentence that could've been forever misunderstood, there but for the skill and tenacity of Mr. Benoit Blanc. 

Cancer had taken Harlan's wife and his son, and money had taken the rest of them - that's how he used to put it. "Money _is_ cancer," he'd finally landed upon, on one gloomy night up in the attic. "It's freedom in a cage, Marta. Practically speaking, it's power and it's influence - but if you're not careful, it'll get in your lungs and shrivel up your organs." He'd shuddered dramatically. "Disgusting stuff. I should give it all to UNESCO and move to a home."

"No home would take you," Marta had teased.

"You'd find me a good one," he countered, his eyes sparkling with laughter. Marta finds that she misses the laughter the most. 

Had he known, even then, what he was going to do? Had he been planning it for that long - watching the decay of his children's lives, despairing at his inability to fix it? Had he been thinking all along, that Marta was the only one worthy enough to shoulder the responsibility? Because that's really what it is, when it comes down to it - the money, the house, the rights. The legacy. Freedom with so many strings. 

"Foolish old man," Marta says, tucking a few loose pages beneath the whiskey bottle, so the wind doesn't blow them away. Ironically, leaving her writing for Harlan is probably just as safe as never showing it to anyone at all; none of his children have been to visit in months. "I do miss you, though. God help me."

Marta read a book last week, recommended by Benoit, written by a Japanese novelist named Yoko Ogawa. She'd devoured it in a single afternoon, entranced by the language, dreamlike and dystopian, somehow romantic even though it dealt with grim subject matter. Marta thinks Harlan would've liked it, because he liked George Orwell quite a lot, and this novel reminded her of _1984_ , only more modernized, somehow. The characters seemed more suited to today's world, in which catastrophe creeps in slowly, and sometimes you don't even notice it because everyone's already braced for the worst. 

She'd tried to replicate that sort of dreamy bleakness in a story about a case study she remembers from nursing school, an elderly Alzheimer's patient who'd actually attacked his wife, thinking she was an intruder. She'd given up after about an hour, on the verge of tears, frustrated with her inability to translate the mood in her head into the words on the page. That wasn't what it'd been like, for Harlan - his writing came so easily to him. Natural. It was _fun._ For Marta, it feels more like...an impulse. Like an itch beneath her skin that she has to obey. 

In October, she will travel to New York City, to join Benoit Blanc for his younger brother's fifteenth wedding anniversary, at a very upscale hotel in Manhattan. Marta's already picked out a dress, and her sister's made her promise to take far too many selfies, and to visit the Met at least twice. Benoit would like her to also go to Paris. He thinks she would find solace at the Louvre. 

"When I was a young man," he told her, "I spent three weeks straight at the Louvre. This was back in the days when you could find a room very cheaply in that city - I paid maybe ten Euro a night, can you imagine? - and I woke up every morning at seven o'clock, shoved a pastry in my mouth, and rode the train to the museum. I spent all day there, wandering around in a kind of daze, and I was the last one to leave. I went back to the hostel and face planted on my little bunk, like I was in a coma. I didn't seem to quite exist, outside of the walls. It was the strangest thing." 

"That sounds," Marta had said, overwhelmed at the idea, "amazing."

"You should do it," Blanc had told her gently, "medicine for the soul, that's what it is. Doesn't have to be Paris. London, Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Florence - wherever you want to go, dear Marta. The world is at your feet."

Marta also wonders, sometimes, if she's special, or if Blanc keeps in correspondence with other people from his cases. Lost souls with kind hearts, the ones that seem to touch him - does he have these conversations with them, too? Or is Marta unique, somehow? The Thrombeys' story is unique, certainly. 

She tries to picture it, and can't quite conjure the image. Harlan was from Canada, originally, but he lived for a long time in Europe - mostly London, although Marta remembers stories about Brussels, too. Alicia wants to go to Australia, already has the whole trip planned. Her mother, now with the freedom to move about as she wants, could visit her parents and her sisters if she wanted - Marta keeps encouraging her, has even thought about surprising her with a plane ticket. But as for herself, Marta tries to imagine herself riding the train in Paris, spending her birthday in Greece, sleeping on a couch in an airport in London, but she can't. There's nothing but a fathomless, white space in her head. 

Are her lungs already black? Are her organs already shriveled up? Marta bites her lip, smoothes the pages flat against Harlan's gravestone. She hopes not. She's been trying. 

Not enough people know that L. Frank Baum wrote fourteen Oz books, with a sprawling cast of characters. The Oz books were popular during Baum's lifetime, and he wrote short stories, plays - some of them set to music! - and authored them all as "the Royal Historian of Oz," so as not to ruin the magic for anybody. Marta's favorite is _The Emerald City of Oz,_ which had originally been intended to be the conclusion to the Oz saga, where Dorothy, Uncle Henry, and Auntie Em move to Oz permanently (and also go on an adventure, naturally). The author's note, at the beginning of the novel, is the main reason she's always liked it. It's probably one of the most charming things anyone's ever written. 

_Perhaps I should admit,_ Baum wrote, in 1910, _that this book is 'By L. Frank Baum and his correspondents,' for I have used many suggestions conveyed to me in letters from children. Once on a time I really imagined myself 'an author of fairy tales,' but now I am merely an editor or private secretary for a host of youngsters whose ideas I am requested to weave into the thread of my stories. These ideas are often clever. They are also logical and interesting._

Harlan hated his fans. They were rude, they were entitled. They sent him creepy emails and letters. His grandson Jacob would tell nasty stories at the dinner table about threads he saw on Reddit, parodying Harlan's books. Walt brought him ghastly treatments from Hollywood people - spec scripts by son-of-who's-that and what's-her-name's-cousin, his stories twisted into grotesque shapes, detached completely from the artistic, the genuine, the _fun_ of a good mystery. No, he would not allow his novels to be turned into action movies, blockbuster flicks helmed by factory-made movie stars. Maybe one day, Marta will consider such a thing - the right writer, the right director, the right project. But she could not betray something so core to who Harlan was - certainly not for Walt, not for anybody. 

But every once in a while, Harlan would greet Marta at the beginning of her shift with an excited smile, like he'd been waiting all day for her to arrive, and hustle her down to the office to show her an email or a letter. This one - a young woman in Maine, who'd sent him some poetry, and wasn't it delightful? That one - a man his age who self-publishes these fantastic modernist novels, too complicated for traditional publishing - I'm going to have Walt print them, aren't they interesting? Marta wants to continue this, she thinks. She thinks, _Benoit has an old friend in Shreveport who makes incredible sculptures out of scrap metal. Could I help him too, somehow?_ Alicia has a friend in town, a girl a couple years older who sings in a honkey-tonk band. Meg's roommate at Sarah Lawrence performs the most incredible slam poetry. Even dear old Mr. Proofrock's daughter knits scarves as a hobby - beautiful ones, really - and donates them to the women's shelter. 

She misses her friend dearly. Not as much as his children miss him, perhaps - she goes back and forth on the sincerity of their devotion, just as much as Harlan had when he was alive - but at the end of the day, they were his children, and Marta was not. She knew him better, maybe, but those _are_ the facts. 

At the end of _The Emerald City of Oz,_ Dorothy, the Wizard, and Princess Ozma defeat the Nome King and his allies by tricking them into drinking from a magic fountain that makes them forget everything about who they are, including the fact that they're evil. Marta and Harlan disagreed about this plot point; Harlan had insisted that it was cheap, a knock off of the River Styx. Marta had insisted that it was a lovely way to end the story, and he could stand to remember that the stories were written for _children,_ thank you very much. 

"Children are very interesting people," Harlan told her. "Much smarter than we give them credit for. I'm sure a few of them have found this ending cheap, too."

"Cynic," Marta accused. "Look - they even say it right here, in the text! They defeated the Nome King peacefully. Nobody had to get hurt - not even the bad guys. The point is that they forgot their _wickedness_ \- it freed them just as much as it saved the people of Oz."

"Robbing them of their identity is freedom?" Harlan laughed. "Quite dystopian, don't you think?"

Marta smacked his arm with the side of the book, frowning. Which of course, only made him laugh harder. 

"Evil is evil. It's always there. Even in the book! That's not even the actual ending, Marta, you're forgetting about the last bit, where they make Oz invisible because they know they're going to get invaded again and again and again - "

"Now that's just romance," Marta argued. "A fantasy kingdom of peace, fading into the sky. Still there, but on the other side of some invisible veil?" She grinned. " _Heaven,_ old man. There's an allegory for you."

"Fairy tales," Harlan said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Boring."

Marta gasped. "Blasphemy."

"This is why you liked Oyeyemi so much, isn't it?" Harlan accused. "You hopeless romantic. Artsy millennial! You swoon at Disney movies, don't you?"

"It's none of your business what makes me swoon, thank you very much," Marta had said, but of course he was right. 

Maybe she should go back to school. She could picture that - taking classes on Meg's leafy, ivory campus, graduate seminars in big halls with lots of serious people. She's always liked reading. She could study it, maybe. 

Or long-distance. A low-residency MFA - she could afford it. Art history? Or dance - Marta used to love her ballet classes, when she was little. Oh, it makes her dizzy. Thinking about it, sometimes, in her lonely bedroom in Harlan's house, Marta can hardly bear how wide open the world is now. How fuzzy and uncertain the future looks from the highest window of her new house. 

Writing down Benoit's mysteries? Maybe. Yes. Marta likes the idea of that - and Benoit finds it so charming he can hardly stand it. Pulpy novels for Alicia - Harlan would like that. A pen name for every genre. M. Cabrera - a writer of all trades. 

Or maybe she'll write fairy tales. 

_The writer of these Oz stories,_ Baum wrote, in the conclusion to Dorothy's story, _has received a little note from Princess Dorothy of Oz which, for a time, has made him feel rather disconcerted. The note was written on a broad, white feather from a stork's wing, and it said:_

_"YOU WILL NEVER HEAR ANYTHING MORE ABOUT OZ, BECAUSE WE ARE NOW CUT OFF FOREVER FROM ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD. BUT TOTO AND I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU AND ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN WHO LOVE US._

_DOROTHY GALE."_

Marta loves that paragraph to pieces. The Oz books are so lightly written, with deft humor and a surprising darkness, sometimes, that seems almost blunt in its brutality - the Wicked Witch's enchanted axe, forcing the Tin Man to cut off his own limbs, one by one - Princess Langwidere, who collects severed heads - Jack Pumpkinhead, whose body is constantly rotting - but Marta's read the Brothers Grimm, she knows that stories for children are not just intended to entertain, and to comfort. If anything, it's adult fiction that does that - stories like Harlan's. Mysteries with a beginning, a middle, and an end - a villain and a hero, a bad guy and a good guy. Every question had an answer, every lock had a key, and the fun was really in the figuring it out. Really, what Harlan was uncomfortable with, when it came to his tastes in fiction, was ambiguity. Marta, on the other hand, is beginning to discover her own tastes, and finds that she doesn't mind it, not even a little bit. 

"Dear Marta," Blanc says, on the occasion of their next conversation, which also happens to be the morning after he receives one of her stories in a certified envelope, overnighted to Lawrence, Kansas, where the good detective is investigating a terribly interesting double murder, "you are full of surprises."

"So you liked it?" Marta asks. "Did I make you suave enough? Or should I add a hat? I kept thinking, 'oh, he should have a hat. It would make him more attractive.'"

"I have no preference one way or the other on the subject of a hat," Blanc says, "but I must say, this has to have been the most enjoyable time I've had with a piece of fiction in ages. Since the first time I read _Extracts from Adam's Diary,_ I would say."

Marta presses the back of her hand against her blushing cheek. "Oh, come on."

"I did love it," Blanc insists. "You have a way with words, my friend. I may not be a Harlan Thrombey, but I can recognize that, at least." Marta blushes again, and moves her hand to hover over her chest, where her heart beats. It's so nice to hear something nice said about you, but then also to believe it. It's much rarer than anyone thinks. "Will you write more?"

"I think," Marta says, having come to a decision about this matter at last, "yes."

**Author's Note:**

> [The Emerald City of Oz,](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/517/517-h/517-h.htm) at Project Gutenberg. The quote from the beginning is actually from the first novel, which is also available to read in the public domain. (And yes, the Tin Man really did mutilate himself. This is also in the first book.)
> 
> and, [Extracts from Adam's Diary,](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1892/1892.txt) which is a short story by Mark Twain. _Extremely_ funny, but also quite touching when you read it with the knowledge that Twain wrote it for his wife.
> 
> & finally - the novel I reference by Yoko Ogawa is called [The Memory Police,](https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781101870600) translated and published in English just a few months ago (it's very good)


End file.
